| Got That Mountain to Climb [Genma, Rina] |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|09:41 pm] |
[Backdated: Takes place a little over four years ago, on March 19th, about a year and five months after the Kyuubi attack, and a week after Genma's rescue from the Iwagakure prisons.]
Rina tagged along behind Ito-sensei, her head spinning delightfully, clutching a spiral-bound notebook already a quarter-full with clipped notations, sprawling diagrams, and enthusiastic exclamation points. The just-completed burn-repair surgery had been absolutely fascinating to watch--seeing glowing blue chakra-channels spontaneously reform themselves within the carnage of twisted fingers and torn flesh--and she'd noticed that Ito-sensei had used one of the modified sterilization scrolls that had brought her to his attention in the first place.
See, and they'd complained that she hadn't followed the blueprints! Clearly Ito-sensei didn't mind. Rina had been in the Seal Division for more than a year now, and had been making seals for years before that--certainly she knew enough to substitute the more powerful tri-point pattern for a quad-point, even if it wasn't exactly what the design called for.
Actually, if the tri-point was good, what if she used the double-stabilized quint-pattern she'd seen downstairs, instead? ...Awesome. Fumbling through her notebook, she pulled her fountain pen out from behind her ear and drew herself a quick sketch, then had to half-run to catch up with Ito-sensei as he pushed through the door leading to their last patient of the day.
"Genma," she heard Ito-sensei call good-naturedly as she slid in behind him, "there's someone I'd like you to meet." |
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| FUBAR (Genma, Yanagi) |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|04:00 pm] |
[Backdated: Takes place in August, three months before the Fox attack]
"Hey. Kid. You keeping a look out?"
Nori flashed an irritated glance over his shoulder, but then turned his sharp eyes back to the forest that surrounded them. "Of course I'm keeping a look out. And I'm not a kid." His teeth ground together, already expecting the taunt.
"Right. Rookie."
"I still outrank you."
That got Akira's goat. The special jounin glared at him, and Nori smirked. If looks could kill... this whole group would be dead. Rain ninja weren't exactly known for getting along -- at least, not these days. These days, they were more known for tearing into each other, everyone grappling for a piece of the country. This group was no different, though Yanagi hadn't yet figured out all of the political machinations. He didn't really need to; he just needed to get enough information back to Konoha to make sure this faction didn't win.
And stay alive long enough to get the information back to Konoha. There was a reason they sent ANBU in, rather than the normal intel jounin. ( Rain weren't kind to traitors. ) |
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| Kunoichi and Bastards. [Asuma & Tsume] |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|09:29 pm] |
[Takes places directly after Pirates and Ninja]
There were only so many ways you could swim back to consciousness in thirty-six hours before it became something like routine. This time, Asuma woke with a soft little gasp that was barely more than a deeper inhale, and felt his fingers twitch. He didn't open his eyes. Some wary, uncertain part of him wanted caution. Wanted to know what the hell had happened before all that black...
"You awake, old man?"
It was a surreal experience to hear your own voice twisted into humour and something that wasn't quite worry.
"Unhg?" Asuma managed, and slit one eyelid open. He was lying belly-down on a broad table, unwounded cheek pressed against wooden planks that were just a mite too sticky for his personal taste. He winced.
( Directly in his blurry line of sight, his own face grinned back at him. ) |
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| Coming and Going [Kuromaru, Yasuo, Waki] |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|05:34 pm] |
[Companion piece to the Pirates thread. Takes place during Pirates and Ninja.]
"You're a bad ninja," Kuromaru mumbled, his muzzle resting on his forepaws as he lay across the hospital bed.
Yasuo refrained from pointing out that Kuromaru was the one needed in the hospital for chakra surgeries -- even if they were mostly certain the rot was gone this time. He also refrained from pointing out that if Kuromaru hadn't been so determined to leave the village, they could be home in the clan grounds right now waiting for Tsume's return, rather than locked in a hospital room to ensure Kuromaru stayed where he belonged. And finally, he refrained from pointing out that he was following orders, while Kuromaru was disobeying them at every turn -- his doctor's orders to stay put for surgery, the Hokage's orders that Tsume go without Kuromaru, and Tsume's orders that Kuromaru stay here.
( Refraining was getting easier. He'd already pointed everything out many times over the last two days. ) |
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| All We Know Is Distance [Ryouma and Ginta] |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|10:37 pm] |
The message was waiting when Ryouma came home, pleasantly tired and only slightly splattered with drying black slime and blood that wasn't his. He shoved back his ram-faced mask and leaned hipshot against the mission desk, grinning cheerfully down at Reiko. "Guess who didn't even get scratched this time, eh? You can put 'COMPLETE VICTORY' in that little box up at the top. It was glorious. They didn't even--"
"Ryouma-kun," Reiko said very quietly, "you need to go to the hospital."
He blinked down at her. "Shuuhei isn't colicky anymore, is he? I know it's awful hard stayin' up all night with a crying baby, but I didn't think you could go deaf. None of this blood's mine, all right?"
( Reiko pulled a sticky-note off his file folder and held it out. ) |
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| Pirates and Ninja. [Asuma & Tsume] |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|12:54 am] |
[Follows directly after Darkness and Light]
Awareness came slowly.
Time had passed; the sun had lifted. A thin beam of light hit the back of Asuma's hand, shivering a drop of warmth into the world. Slowly, achingly, his fingers began to clench. Pain rippled up his arm.
Pain rippled everywhere. It was like a living thing, clawing through his body, ripping a chunk out whenever he breathed. His ribcage hitched. Something very like a whimper eased between cracked, bloody lips.
( It stopped quickly. Even half dead, Asuma had pride. ) |
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| After the Rain [Hiro, Genma, and Raidou] |
[Jun. 13th, 2009|03:47 pm] |
[Takes place in the early morning of April 2nd, four days after Meet You on the Other Side and eight days after Dude, that was YOU?.]
It was two weeks later, on a different floor, but to Hiro the deja-vu felt palpable. Shiranui Genma, back in the hospital... And yet again, Hiro was walking down the white-walled hallways with a sheaf of papers--considerably thicker, this time--and a mission scroll.
This was actually his second attempt. The first time, he'd been intercepted by a hawk-faced woman who'd flashed her ANBU tattoo and credentials and told him in no uncertain terms to go home. Sato Kotoe, apparently, matching the face to the name heading his handful of reports--she was his superior both in general and on this case, and it had only taken a moment of meeting her eyes to read her clearly-projected implacability.
( Hiro had nodded sharply, and left. ) |
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| Darkness and Light [Asuma and Tsume] |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|12:29 pm] |
[Directly follows Fire and Water]
The first thing she became aware of was coughing. The weak, ginger sort of wheezing people did when their bodies were too exhausted to give it any effort, the kind where you'd been sick for days and every cough hurt.
The second thing she became aware of was sound. Tsume's eyes flew open. Darkness met them. But not complete darkness--here was a deeper shadow, and there a glimmer of light off metal. She could see. She pushed up, shivering with the sudden knowledge that it was damp and cold--( and she was naked. ) |
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| Lullaby for a Stormy Night [Ginta] |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|12:00 am] |
[Takes place approximately 4:00 AM on March 30th, immediately after Death and All His Friends]
The Sakamoto estate was quiet and dark. A nightingale sang in the garden, unheeded by all but the household cats. Suki, the head maid, was the one to answer the knock at the door, the one to usher the grey-uniformed man into the receiving room. The one to rouse Sakamoto Chihiro.
"I'm so sorry to wake you, Chihiro-sama," she whispered. She held a lantern for her mistress, who opened her eyes and sat stiffly up, clutching a rich, peach-colored silk duvet to her chest. "There is a man. Shiratori-san, from ANBU..." Suki looked away. "I've given him tea, mistress, and told him I would wake you."
"Shiratori-san," Chihiro echoed. It had been a long time since she'd been wakened in the darkest hours by this man. Not since Gousuke had been alive, and then the man had always been here to summon her husband, not her.
( There was only one possible reason he was here now. ) |
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| Fire and Water [Tsume and Asuma] |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|08:35 pm] |
[Takes place seven days after Words Without Meaning, six days after Fall From Grace, and four days after Kakashi returned to Konoha.]
"Inuzuka!"
Tsume cringed, halting finally on the dirt path. The agent had been following her for some time, but she'd been able to ignore him. Hard to ignore the fact that she was the only Inuzuka out here, though.
With a last longing glance toward the hospital--where Kuromaru was undergoing the last few days of chakra-cleansing after his close call training with Katsuko--she stopped and waited. "Help you?" she asked without looking back.
He wheezed to a halt, flailing a scroll around. "Orders," he managed to gasp.
She snatched it. It had to be a mistake. Or an order for something she could put off, at least--it wasn't like she could do missions yet.
( Then her brows pulled down and in. ) |
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| Death and All His Friends |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|04:26 pm] |
[Set immediately after Fall to the Ground]
They had almost fifteen minutes' warning that there were two critically injured shinobi on the way in. Fifteen minutes, plus the ninja's registration numbers, so there was already blood typed and crossed and ready to hand. O-pos for one, B-pos for the other, eight units of each, almost enough to replace every red cell in their bodies. They had time to send for a chakra specialist, because the medics radioed in that one of the casualties had been poisoned with chakra pills. Technically an overdose, not a poisoning. And technically not even an overdose, so much as overuse. Massive overuse, combined with some kind of brutally draining jutsu.
They had time to bring in crash carts and chakra monitors. Time to order up pre-made seals for chakra support, sterilization of wounds, tissue repair. Time to set up the trauma room to receive two criticals, to assemble doctors and nurses and technicians. Time, even, for a grim faced agent from ANBU's mission control to arrive and set himself up in the corner of the room with recording devices.
Fifteen minutes after the call came in from the north gate, non-critical patients had been moved to side corridors, the man having a heart attack sent to ICU, the kid with asthma shunted off to pediatrics. There was a quiet anticipation, a nervousness underscored by the hum of fluorescent lights.
( Sixteen minutes after the call came in, the silence broke in carefully choreographed chaos. ) |
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| Fall to the Ground [Ginta & Kakashi] |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|09:55 pm] |
[set roughly six hours following Hide from the Sound]
Sunlight slanted in through the window, golden and warm. Hot, in fact. Ginta floundered awake, drenched in sweat and so hot he could feel the air in every breath try to catch fire in his chest. For a moment he was back in that burning factory, with orange flames licking at his skin and chemical smoke searing his lungs. He choked and coughed, tensing up with a gasp, and finally broke the surface of consciousness.
Hot. Searingly hot. Burns pulled on his shoulders, and his right leg was a maddening blaze of crushed bone. But it was the left that had his attention now, a pounding inferno that kept time with his pulse, racing in waves from the deep furrow an arrow had dug. He reached gingerly under the blankets to brush the edge of a damp bandage, and felt bile surge in his throat before he quite realized it was pain that caused it.
His own breath rasped in his ears, purple-black blotted his vision. When it cleared, he lay still for several long minutes, trying to gather the strength to move. Hot. So hot. If only there were a breeze, but the air was stagnant, as if it were midsummer. He remembered missions to Suna, baking in the oven-like desert air. His tongue felt thick and dry in his mouth, and his hands swollen and clumsy. Every joint and muscle sapped by the heat.
( Kakashi was there next to him still, asleep, or maybe dead. ) |
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| Hide from the Sound [Ginta & Kakashi] |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|12:36 am] |
[Immediately follows Can't See the Light]
The safe house creaked and swayed with the wind. Or maybe the sensation of movement was just a leftover from an overtaxed vestibular system, from pain meds and exhaustion. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Ginta rasped orders at Kakashi's clone--orders it probably didn't need--it would have seen to Kakashi anyway. It carefully carried Kakashi to a second camp bed, stripped him down, stitched and bandaged his bloodied hip, spread sweet-smelling balm across Kakashi's burned shoulders, and bandaged them too.
It was the same balm it had used on Ginta, from the same stash of medical supplies. It made their high-placed hideaway smell like summer grass, new tatami mats, a soft breeze.
"Lights," Ginta whispered, as the last of the twilight faded. The clone, whether on its own initiative or in response to Ginta's command, found a pair of oil lamps. It lit them both, setting one next to Ginta's bed, carrying the other back to Kakashi's prone form. After a moment it turned up the wick, casting strong shadows. Ginta glanced at the window and hoped the security seals concealing them were reactivated. It was how they were designed, he remembered, a sort of dead-man's switch--it took chakra to reveal a safe house, and only then if you knew the revealing jutsu. With no chakra applied, the native state was concealment.
( In the stronger light he could see more injuries. ) |
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| Can't See the Light. [Kakashi & Ginta] |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|11:42 pm] |
[Set 27th March, six days after the Nightclub arc, four days after Dude, that was YOU?, and two days after Blind-sided.]
In the very early morning, two days after tangling with Kuromaru in the showers, Kakashi was yanked out of bed by yet another misguided soul who wanted to commit involuntary suicide. Growling, still dressed in the sweat-soaked training blacks he'd fallen asleep in, surrounded by half a pack of equally worn out dogs, he slammed the door open and contrived to laminate the harassed-looking Intel agent's eyeballs to the back of his skull with a look. "It's six AM."
The man broke eye-contact, found himself in the crosshairs of several intent canine stares, and studiously fixed his gaze on the ceiling. "Yes," he agreed, in the tone of a man not prepared to make that his problem. "It's also raining."
"What do you want?"
( A black-bordered folder presented itself for Kakashi's inspection. ) |
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| I Don't Want to Remember Falling [Natsumi] |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|11:04 pm] |
[[Set 2 days after Fall from Grace.]]
The family was at dinner when Natsumi came home. A low murmur of conversation caught her ears as she stooped to slide her sandals off in the doorway; Takeo's laugh rang like brilliant bells. Natsumi's lips thinned. Well, with any luck he'd have brought his newest conquest home, and she would be easily forgotten in the thrill of the chase.
In a houseful of ninja, it was hard to hide. She'd barely finished setting her shoes perfectly straight in their little alcove when the paper door above her slid back and a slim, straight shadow obscured the light. "Nacchan!" Takeo's honey-rich tenor deepened with delight. He ran down the steps, threw an arm around her shoulders, and kissed her swiftly.
Natsumi's stiffness melted, just a little. If Takeo was in a good mood, she had nothing to worry about; he was only really a problem when he was bored. She hugged him back, careful of her still-bandaged right hand. "It's good to see you again, oniisan. Did you bring company tonight?"
"What, jealous?" He tweaked her nose and stepped back, grinning broadly. The light from the inner house haloed in his black hair, limned the perfectly sculpted edge of high cheekbones and deceptively delicate chin. Their mother had once been the most beautiful woman in three provinces; Takeo had inherited all her celebrated beauty and added a wild insouciance of his own. "I was going to, but she had the gall to get herself assigned an extra shift at the hospital. That's all right, though; you're here instead." He set a hand at the small of her back and propelled her firmly up the steps. ( Natsumi's heart sank. He *was* bored. ) |
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| Fall From Grace. [Asuma & Natsumi] |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|04:23 am] |
[[Immediately follows Shield of Faith.]]
Natsumi's laughter lasted for the first few miles, sparking back up when Asuma managed to hit on the right combination of flirting and teasing and good old dirty jokes. It was a good sound, musical and clear--a decent, distracting thing to focus on every time he had to lean over to pick a scroll up, and his side burned.
He tried to ignore that.
At the final count, they'd found five of his scrolls--all weapons, jutsu, or sealed bits of precious he didn't want to lose--and his very battered but still intact map. He folded the map into a spare pocket, stowed the scrolls into his waistband (which was not comfortable, but at least left his hands free), and called himself satisfied. He'd lost his armour, his med-kit, his cigarettes, and his pack, but he had most of the things that mattered.
( And a still-breathing teammate that topped everything. ) |
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| Shield of Faith [Asuma and Natsumi] |
[May. 31st, 2009|07:45 pm] |
[[Immediately follows Leap of Faith.]]
Air became water with punishing force. Asuma's grip tightened, crushing Natsumi to his chest; she choked off her involuntary cry just in time not to choke on the river.
Asuma didn't. Thrashing legs kicking for the surface slowed; the painful band of muscle around her ribcage loosened. Natsumi broke her hand-seal, grabbed the back of his neck in one hand, and pulled his head down to hers. He didn't resist. In the dark water, his face was deathly pale, and his open eyes stared down at her, terrifying sightless.
She didn't know any words bad enough, and couldn't use them anyway. Her chest was beginning to burn; the single breath she'd caught as her jutsu had flung them free of the waterfall wouldn't be enough for long. ( He was an impossible weight, limp and boneless, dragging them both down... ) |
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| Leap of Faith. [Asuma & Natsumi] |
[May. 29th, 2009|12:53 am] |
[Set March 22nd, a week after One Step/Two Step, and five days after Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.]
Getting missions in ANBU turned out to be a lot more work than advertised. The pros got everything juicy--hunts, assassinations, pretty girls to rescue and escort--but rookies got the scutt work, like it or lump it.
Fresh back from two days spent in a nowhere town on the western border, mediating a disagreement between two minor fief lords that might have gotten ugly (but had mostly been boring as hell), Asuma was ready for something better. Anything better.
Which was why Saturday's dawn found him up almost-bright and far too early, wandering freshly showered into ANBU's mission room, ready to beg, bribe, or bargain his way into something with a little fire. The young chuunin behind the desk was pretty, brunette, and exhausted-looking, but brightened up a spark at his ready smile.
"Morning, sweetheart," he said, ignoring the empty chair in favour of leaning against the edge of her desk. "I'm wondering if you can help me..."
( A little back and forth later... ) |
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| Never Too Late [Closed to Ryuichi] |
[May. 27th, 2009|08:52 pm] |
Takes place two hours after No Rest for the Wicked.
The past three days were lost in a haze of unconsciousness and morphine. It was an excuse for someone who didn’t need an excuse. Ryuichi knew that other missions were assigned while he was out, and it didn’t surprise him when Ise came in bruised and bloody, her uniform ripped and armor dented. The hospital walls rose up around them, an acid smell of disinfectant to conceal the many deaths that had happened. The sun had started to go down, and Ise slid through the half-open door without a word as the first star came up. Neither of them saw it. The walls were thick, and there was no window.
The medics had seen her coming and moved out of the way. They knew her well. They knew Kaede-sensei better, and Ise had the distinct fortune of looking exactly like her. They had the same scruffy hair, the same hard mouth and harder eyes. It was good for getting people to move out of the way. Not so much when they mistook her for a crazy jounin and expected her to react accordingly.
“I head you were dead.” Ise settled herself down in the chair Katsuko had so recently abandoned. It looked worse for the wear, but this was a shinobi hospital.( Everything looked worse for the wear. ) |
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